Polish Guard Injured After Group of Over 50 Migrants Storm Border

Polish law enforcement officers secure the frontier at the Bruzgi-Kuznica border crossing
MAXIM GUCHEK/BELTA/AFP via Getty Images
Chris Tomlinson

A Polish border guard was injured over the weekend when a group of approximately 50 migrants attempted to storm the Polish border with Belarus, attacking the border guards with rock and stones.

The incident took place near the village of Czeremsza along the border with Belarus and saw the border guards discover the group of 55 migrants, who attacked the officials with stones, causing one official to be injured after a stone struck him in the face.

The soldier had to be treated by a military doctor according to a report from the European Union-funded website InfoMigrants, who stated that the 55 migrants were eventually detained by the officers and that the following day another 88 attempted to cross into Poland illegally.

The Polish border guard also wrote on Twitter that since the start of the month, at least 838 migrants have made attempts to cross illegally from Belarus into Poland.

Just days before Saturday’s incident, the Polish government released footage of further clashes at the border between migrants and Polish border guards, with migrants yelling obscenities at officers in English while throwing various objects at them.

The clashes have become fairly common and have seen major incidents like the major confrontation in November that saw Poland deploy water cannons to stop groups of hundreds of migrants, some of which were allegedly armed with stun grenades.

The Polish government, along with others in Europe, have directly blamed the Belarusian government of President Alexander Lukashenko for the ongoing crisis, with reports claiming that Belarusian forces have actively tried to destroy Poland’s border fencing to help the migrants as well as targeting Polish border guards with lasers and strobe lights.

Polish spokesman for the Minister-Coordinator of Special Services  Stanisław Żaryn predicted last month that the crisis on the border was not going to be solved any time soon, and stated that the Belarusian authorities were attempting to exhaust Poland’s border guards.

“The conflict on the Polish-Belarusian border starts to be estimated to last for a long time. It may also mean a cynical ploy to exhaust our soldiers and officers,” Żaryn said.

“We are entering the conflict phase when each day starts to look alike. We are still dealing with repeated attacks by groups of foreigners supported by the Belarusian services. We can see that this conflict is starting to be a conflict estimated to last for a long time,” he said.

President Lukashenko, meanwhile, has claimed that migrants have a “right” to enter the European Union and have a speech late last month to a group of migrants near the border, saying, “If anybody wants to go west — that is your right. We will not try to catch you, beat you, and hold you behind barbed wire.”

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